11 Vidyapith students asked to do more community work as punishment

Ahmedabad, July 28 (UNI) Eleven students of the Gujarat Vidyapith were today asked to do community service as part of a disciplinary action handed out to them for ragging of first year students.

They will have to do community work both in the campus and in the villages assigned to them. ''Four of them have been asked to set up a gobar gas plant in the villages they work,'' said Vidyapith Vice Chancellor Sudarshan Iyengar.

The eleven of BSc (Microbiology) at the Sadara Centre of the Vidyapith, have been charged with asking the freshers to massage them. Parents of a student had also alleged that he was asked by his seniors to strip.

Terming it as a shameful act of mischief, the V-C said ragging was not acceptable in the University, which is a Gandhian institution. ''We are very much concerned and had called a meeting of all students, their parents and teachers to discuss the issue.

This sort of incident has happened in the institute for the first time in its history,'' he said.

He said after a lot of deliberations the University decided against rusticating the errant students as ''they are at an impressionable age and such punitive action do not help anybody''.

''But a corrective measure had to be taken, and so we decided to make them do more community service,'' he added.

The incident has also led the Vidyapith teachers to introspect on if they had failed to inculcate Gandhian values in these teachers, he said.

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